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Nov 2, 2026
Dartmouth’s AI Advocate Resigned Over the Transparency Rules He Didn’t Follow
Dartmouth’s leadership sees AI as essential to the university’s future, while its former provost argued that human responsibility matters more than a simple human-versus-machine label. The clash came when Schnell’s own undisclosed use of the technology fell short of the transparency standards the college says must govern that future.
Santiago Schnell arrived as Dartmouth’s provost in July 2025, taking one of the college’s most powerful academic posts at an institution that proudly traces AI’s origins to its 1956 summer workshop. As AI swept through classrooms and research labs, Schnell became part of the debate over how universities should police its use.
On Aug. 9, 2026, he sharpened that argument in a Washington Post essay titled, “Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there’s a deeper problem.” Yet the same public intervention would later become part of the case against him. Dartmouth’s faculty advisory committee found that Schnell had not disclosed AI assistance in the op-ed, despite the newspaper’s requirements, and had also omitted required disclosures in a ChemSystemsChem manuscript.1
The committee’s review of Dartmouth’s Claude enterprise logs showed a broader use than simple spell-checking: Schnell asked the system to review a paper, troubleshoot code and help generate figures. It also concluded that he had been insufficiently cooperative, declining to meet with investigators and withholding logs from personal LLM accounts related to the writings under review.1
Schnell’s own defense, as described in reporting on the case, was narrower. He told Semafor he had used chatbots “to refine a few arguments” and “check for grammatical errors.” He maintained that AI could be an editorial tool or intellectual partner without becoming a co-author—and said he had not understood that this level of assistance required disclosure.2
That distinction did not persuade Dartmouth’s review. In September, President Sian Leah Beilock acknowledged that leading on AI would be “messy” and that institutional missteps were inevitable. But when Schnell resigned Wednesday, she drew the line more clearly: leaders must model “the transparency and human judgment that we expect from our students and scholars.”2
Schnell’s departure leaves Dartmouth embracing the technology he championed while enforcing the disclosure discipline he failed to meet. Matthew Delmont will serve as interim provost through June 2028.2